Tag Archives: Passata

Who doesn’t love pizza? In our house we have it every Friday to mark the beginning of the weekend. I used to buy shop bought pizzas until I started making this brilliant recipe, which gives you all the taste, but at a fraction of the price. Most importantly it is really easy – so easy you don’t even have to hang around waiting for the dough to rise, but you still get pizzeria results. Perfect.

Makes two large pizzas or three medium pizzas

Freezes? Dough freezes well. See freezing section at the end

Ingredients

Base

300g strong bread flour (+ extra for dusting tins)

1 x teaspoon salt (this is essential for the texture of the dough)

1 x teaspoon fast action yeast

1 x tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

200ml Warm water

Topping

100 ml passata

16 x thin slices of Napoli Salami

1 x ball mozzarella

2 x red chillies

2 x teaspoon fennel seeds

1 x pinch coarse black pepper

Method

Preheat oven to highest temperature

Take a baking tray and place it upside down in the oven on a medium to high shelf

Take another baking tray and make it non-stick by drizzling with oil. Rub oil in so it is spread evenly across the whole tray. Dust the whole tray with flour tapping away any excess on your clean work surface.

Put the flour and yeast in a bowl and make a well

Add 200ml of warm water

Add the oil and salt

Stir until ingredients are well combined

Tip the mixture onto the dusted surface

Knead for 10 minutes – the dough will feel cold and smooth when it is ready. Dust with extra flour if necessary to stop it sticking.

When ready put it back in the bowl and cover with a tea towel while you prepare the other ingredients.

Take the ball of mozzarella

Squeeze out any excess water and pat dry with kitchen roll

Tear the mozzarella into small pieces and set aside

Slice the chillies into thin slices and set aside

Take the dough and cut it in half (or three pieces if you are making medium pizzas)

Roll into balls

Place each ball onto the flour dusted work surface

Take a rolling pin and roll each base into a large circle – the base should be very thin – approximately 4-5mm

Place bases onto the floured tins

Divide the passata and spread onto the pizza bases with the back of a spoon, leaving 1.5cm round the edges.

Divide the torn mozzarella between the bases

Add the salami, chillies, fennel seeds and black pepper

Cover with foil being careful to lift it from the pizza so it doesn’t stick to the ingredients

Put the pizza in the oven on top of the upside down baking tray, which will be very hot and act as an even surface for the pizza to cook. Cook for 10 minutes

Remove the foil and cook for another 5 minutes

When the base is cooked the pizza should easily slide of the tray onto your chopping board. Cook for slightly longer if it doesn’t.

Cook the other pizza while you are enjoying the first.

You can bake both at the same time by putting another turned baking tray onto a different shelf, but you will need to increase cooking times by about 5 minutes.

Freezing

Make double or four times the amount you need. Roll each portion into balls and wrap in cling film greased with oil (see photo below). Freeze and defrost a few hours before needed.